On Apr 12, 8:42*pm, Peter Franks wrote:
[ . . . ]

"Basic greenhouse gas physics from MIT."

and

"This run of 172 months above the norm is the result of a warming
world. *It is too large to occur by chance at any reasonable level
of confidence."

What is the cause of the warming world? You seem to infer greenhouse gases..

WHAT IS WARMING THE EARTH

There are many factors, the predominate one, and the one
which is growing fastest, is an increase in the concentrations
of greenhouse gases. These gases trap the Earth's heat.
The rate that heat is trapped is measured in Watts per
square meter of the Earth's surface. Please see:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/

Note that the green line, representing accumulating man-made
greenhouse gas emissions easily dominates all other potential
causes of the observed warming today and that they are growing
the fastest. Also, please see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:C...ttribution.png

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/figspm-3.htm

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/crowley.html

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/pal...al-4_12_01.txt

To show that man is the largest source of the recent warming,
One needs to show two very important things:

1) THAT MAN IS THE SOURCE OF THE OBSERVED INCREASE
IN ATMOSPHERIC GREENHOUSE GAS CONCENTRATIONS

There are three kinds of greenhouse gases to deal with:

A) The easiest gas to demonstrate anthropogenic origins
for are the organo-halogens. Most of the atmospheric
organo-halogens have no significant natural sources.
Therefore, their increasing concentrations must be
anthropogenic.

B) There are two ways to show that the increase of CO2 in
the atmosphere is anthropogenic. Both of them are very
convincing demonstrations.
Radio isotope analysis of Carbon in atmospheric CO2 shows
that the increasing CO2 concentrations come from fossil
fuel origins. This is known as "The Seuss Effect," after
its discoverer, Dr. Hans Seuss.
Or, if one simply has to have all the trivia, one can
trace inputs and outputs of the Carbon cycle. See:

http://www.radix.net/~bobg/faqs/scq.CO2rise.html

or:

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/095.htm

C) Perhaps the hardest gas increase to attribute to humans
is Methane, CH4. There are many sources and sinks for
this gas, so its history can be quite a puzzle at first.
Sources, sinks, and trends for CH4 are summarized in
this table from the IPCC:
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/134.htm#tab42

2) THAT GREENHOUSE GASES TRAP INFRARED RADIATION LEAVING EARTH.

There are at least two ways to show the greenhouse gases
heat the planet by trapping outgoing long wave, or
infrared, radiation. Both of them are very convincing.

It's called "Radiative Forcing Theory," and you find it
in any good college level text on atmospheric chemistry
or atmospheric physics. It is 19th century science,
the works of Fourier, Tyndall, and Arrhenius. Infrared
spectrums taken from the ground looking-up and from
space looking down are very convincing evidence for
this theory. They have the peeks of greenhouse gases.

See:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html#contents

http://science.widener.edu/svb/ftir/ir_ln.html

There is another way of demonstrating the action of
greenhouse gases: the spacial and temporal distribution
of their effects is their unique fingerprint:

1) There is more warming in winter than summer.

http://members.cox.net/rcoppock/Northern%20Seasons.jpg

http://members.cox.net/rcoppock/Southern%20Seasons.jpg

2) There is more warming at night than in the day.

3) There is more warming at high latitudes than
the tropics.

http://members.cox.net/rcoppock/GISS...n_Latitude.jpg

These can be attributed to "Infrared Band Saturation."
(Other minor effects enhance these three as well.)
Water and CO2 share peeks in their infrared spectrum.
Increased humidity, in summer, at night, and in the
tropics can block CO2's effect. No other cause of
global warming can work quite this way. See the
Widener URL above, and the textbook he

http://forecast.uchicago.edu/

http://www.amazon.com/Global-Warming.../dp/1405140399